It is known in prior art messages reporting a fault, transmitted particularly in flight from the aircraft to a ground station. Throughout the text, “fault” refers to any abnormal operation of a piece of equipment of the aircraft. Typically, the message reporting a fault is transmitted in the form of an ACARS (Aircraft Communication Addressing and Reporting System) message. Different examples of messages reporting a fault are known, particularly:                failure messages, initially provided to report the fault to the maintenance system within the aircraft;        warnings (referred to as “FDCE” for “Flight Deck and Cabin Effects”), initially provided to report a fault to the pilots; and        fault cases, which are messages that combine a warning and a failure message.        
The message reporting a fault is received by a ground station, dedicated to the maintenance of the aircraft. An equipment identifying device is then used which makes it possible to associate a message reporting a fault with a list of pieces of equipment, the failure of which could be the cause of the fault. The list is complete, but the pieces of equipment are listed according to a predetermined and fixed order. In other terms, the pieces of equipment are listed according to an order that does not depend on the current context of the fault. Such an equipment identifying device generally contains an electronic version of the trouble shooting manual (TSM). The list of pieces of equipment is generally in the form of a list of identifiers, with each identifier being uniquely associated with a piece of equipment of which the failure could be the cause of the fault. The identifiers are called FIN, for “Functional Item Number”.
It is then necessary to wait for the aircraft to be on the ground in order to send a technician who will test the operation of the various pieces of equipment on the list, in the predetermined order, in order to determine which piece of equipment on the list is effectively defective. The technician will then be able to repair or replace this defective piece of equipment.
A disadvantage in this method is that it requires that the aircraft be immobilised on the ground long enough so that the technician can test, in the predetermined order, the operation of the various pieces of equipment on this list, identify the piece of equipment that is effectively defective, then repair or replace this piece of defective equipment.